This post was written by Brian Croxall, a Humanities Center faculty fellow. This semester and with the support of the College of Humanities, my colleague Michael Call and I launched a new initiative: the game of the week. Every week, one video game will be available to play in the Humanities Learning Commons (1141 …
Acquainted with Death
This post was written by Kathryn Charles, the current Humanities Center Intern. My uncle died the week before my wedding. It was one of my first close encounters with death, and so my grief, although real, was also strange and unexpected. In the days after his death, I found myself spontaneously weeping over cheese …
Fall 2024
All Colloquia will take place in 4010 JFSB at 3:00 PM unless otherwise specified. Please visit the event page for more details. September 12 Rachel Arteaga (University of Washington) “Feelings of Faith in American Literature” September 19 Michael Call & Brian Croxall “Y Play Games” October 3 Anna Nogar (University of New Mexico) “A …
The Garden of Celestial Delights
This post was written by Sara Phenix, a Humanities Center faculty fellow. The scriptures are a veritable catalog of botanical wonders, starting, of course, with the Garden of Eden and its myriad plant species. We know from the Book of Moses that Adam and Eve’s expulsion from the vegetal paradise initiated them into the …
Facing the Lamb
This post was written by Rex P. Nielson, BYU Humanities Center Director. Few art restoration projects have commanded headlines like those that swirled after the second-phased unveiling of the Ghent Altarpiece in 2020. Following a nearly ten-year and multi-million-dollar process utilizing the advanced conservation techniques of the Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage (KIK-IRPA, Brussels), …
CFP: The God Who Laughs — Examining Intersections of Faith and Humor
The God Who Laughs: Examining Intersections of Faith and Humor Can God laugh? Lacking empirical evidence, we accept or reject the hypothesis based on what we think about laughter as well as what we think about deity. Plato was not keen on the guardians of his Republic hearing or reading of gods laughing, not because …
“What does that do exactly?”: On Granular Humanities
This post was written by Gabbie Schwartz, a Humanities Center student fellow and the BYU Humanities Center Intern. It was 4:30 p.m., and I was getting dinner with a friend at the Olive Garden—which is how all great stories start. Excitedly, my friend told me about her senior capstone, an electrical engineering project in …
All Shades of Purple
This post was written by Rebekah James, winner of the 2024 Humanities Center Essay Contest. The British poet William Wordsworth saw the death of his father in the rain. He wrote, I do not doubt That in this later time when storm and rain Beat on my roof at midnight, or by day When …
Crossing the Threshold
This post was written by Ansley Morris, a Humanities Center student fellow. When I was 18 years-old, there was one word that stopped me from declaring myself an English major: prose. Not writing it, not reading it, but the very word itself. Prose. Those five letters were my roadblock, spelling out every one of …
Indecisiveness: How Reading about Monsters Helped Me Recognize My Own
This post was written by Emma Belnap, a Humanities Center student fellow. I have always been an incredibly indecisive person, something that I consider one of my biggest character flaws. Chalk it up to my perfectionism and being so worried that I’ll make a wrong decision that I won’t make one at all, but …












